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Percent of Hourly Workers Making Minimum Wage, 2012

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, around 75.3 million people were paid hourly rates in 2012. Among those paid hourly rates, 3.6 million earned the minimum wage in their state, or 2.1 percent.

An additional 2 million people earned below the minimum wage because they fall under one of the minimum wage exemptions (like tipped employees), which means that a total of 4.7 percent of hourly rate workers earned at or below the minimum wage in 2012.